Break Stats -- 2026 European Open Pool Championship (9-Ball), March 2026

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Here are some aggregate break statistics from the 2026 Roobet European Open Pool Championship played March 10-15 at the Hotel Hills Sarajevo in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was a 202-player 9-Ball event, produced by Matchroom Sport, with double elimination down to 128 players (64 on the winners' side and 64 on the one-loss side) and then single-elimination to the end. Moritz Neuhausen won the tournament, defeating Mario He in the final match.

The commentators (2 per match) were Phil Yates, Michael McMullan, Jeremy Jones, and Karl Boyes. The announcer/interviewer was Kim Kothari and, on the weekend, the MC was Andrej Petrovic.

Conditions -- The conditions for the streamed matches included:
• Diamond 9-foot table with 4" corner pockets;​
• CPBA Royal Apex gray cloth;​
• Aramith Tournament Black balls with a black-spots cue ball;​
• Magic Ball Rack racking template;​
• referee racks with the 9-ball on the foot spot and the 2-ball on one of the wings or in the back location;​
• winner breaks from behind the head string in a box approximately 8" to either side of the long string;​
• no illegal-break rule, but referees are to enforce a forceful-break requirement;​
• 30-second shot clock (60 sec. after the break or a push out), with one 30-sec. extension per player per rack;​
• foul on all balls;​
• 3-foul rule in effect (violation did not occur);​
• jump cues allowed;​
• all slop counts; and​
• lag for the break in each match.​

These stats are for all 20 matches (296 games) that were played in the single-elimination stage Thursday through Sunday on "Table 1," the feature table with commentary. These 20 matches are listed here in the order in which they were played.

Thursday, March 12 (all Last 128 matches)
1. Duong Quoc Hoang defeated Benji Buckley 10-3​
2. Joshua Filler d. Admir Mujagic 10-2​
3. Mika Van Berkel d. Sonny Haegmans 10-3​
4. Gerson Martinez d. Goran Baltic 10-1​
5. Jonas Souto d. Dejan Mihic 10-4​
6. Fedor Gorst d. Frank Wagenmann 10-1​
7. Sanjin Pehlivanovic d. Ermin Beganovic 10-0​

Friday, March 13
8. Duong d. Salvador Garcia 10-0 (Last 64)​
9. Arseni Sevastyanov d. Elliott Sanderson 10-7 (Last 64)​
10. Imran Majid d. Pehlivanovic 10-9 (Last 64)​
11. Duong d. Aleksa Pecelj 10-4 (Last 32)​
12. Sevastyanov d. Gorst 10-6 (Last 32)​
13. Filler d. Yannick Ponders 10-4 (Last 32)​

Saturday, March 14
14. Duong d. Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz 10-8 (Last 16)​
15. Filler d. Van Berkel 10-8 (Last 16)​
16. Eklent Kaçi d. Kledio Kaçi 10-8 (Quarterfinal)​
17. Filler d. Mohammad Soufi 10-3 (Quarterfinal)​

Sunday, March 15
18. Moritz Neuhausen d. E. Kaçi 11-5 (Semifinal)​
19. Mario He d. Filler 11-8 (Semifinal)​
20. Neuhausen d. He 13-7 (Final)​

Overall results
Successful breaks (made at least one ball and did not foul):
Match winners -- 75% (147 of 195)​
Match losers -- 70% (71 of 101)​
Total -- 74% (218 of 296)
Breaker won the game:
Match winners -- 72% (140 of 195)​
Match losers -- 36% (36 of 101)​
Total -- 59% (176 of 296)
Break-and-run games on all breaks:
Match winners -- 31% (61 of 195)​
Match losers -- 16% (16 of 101)​
Total -- 26% (77 of 296)
Break-and-run games on successful breaks (made at least one ball and did not foul):
Match winners -- 41% (61 of 147)​
Match losers -- 23% (16 of 71)​
Total -- 35% (77 of 218)

Here's a breakdown of the 296 games (for match winners and losers combined).

Breaker made at least one ball and did not foul:​
Breaker won the game: 145 (49% of the 296 games)​
Breaker lost the game: 73 (25%)​
Breaker fouled on the break:​
Breaker won the game: 2 (1%)​
Breaker lost the game: 16 (5%)​
Breaker broke dry (without fouling):​
Breaker won the game: 29 (10%)​
Breaker lost the game: 31 (10%)​
Therefore, whereas the breaker won 59% (176 of 296) of all games,​
He won 67% (145 of 218) of the games in which the break was successful (made at least one ball and did not foul).​
He won 40% (31 of 78) of the games in which the break was unsuccessful (fouled or dry).​

Break-and-run games -- The 77 break-and-run games represented 26% of all 296 games, 44% of the 176 games won by the breaker, and 35% of the 218 games in which the break was successful (made a ball and didn't foul).

The 77 break-and-run games consisted of one 4-pack (by Neuhausen in the final match), three 3-packs (1 each by Martinez, Duong, and Van Berkel), thirteen 2-packs (3 by Duong, 3 by Filler, 2 by He, and 1 each by Majid, Sevastyanov, Sanchez-Ruiz, K. Kaçi, and Neuhausen), and 38 singles.

9-Balls on the break -- Four (1.4% of all 296 games). In addition, one 9-ball was made on a fouled break; it was spotted.
 
Miscellany from the data for the 2026 European Open Pool Championship (9-Ball):
[This relates only to the 20 streamed matches I watched, not to all matches in the event.]

▪︎ The most balls made on a single break was 3, done 6 times; the breaker won 5 of those games (1 by a 9-ball-on-the-break B&R).

▪︎ The average number of balls made on the break was 1.1 (this includes dry and fouled breaks). On successful breaks (made at least one ball and did not foul), the average was 1.3, and the distribution was 68% 1 ball, 29% 2 balls, and 3% 3 balls.

▪︎ Number of innings:
• 43% (127 of 296) of the games ended in one inning – 77 games on the breaker's first inning (B&Rs) and 50 games on the non-breaker's first inning.​
• 26% (77 of 296) of the games ended in the second inning.​
• 31% (92 of 296) of the games went beyond the non-breaker's second visit to the table. The game with the most visits to the table ended on the breaker's 10th visit.​

▪︎ 36% (106 of 296) of the games were run out by the player who was at the table following the break. These run-outs were:
• By the breaker after successful breaks (B&R games) – 35% (77 of 218)​
• By the non-breaker after fouls on the break – 78% (14 of 18)​
• By the non-breaker after dry breaks – 25% (15 of 60)​

▪︎ The player who made the first ball after the break:
• Won the game in that same inning 60% of the time (176 of 292)​
• Won the game in a later inning 16% of the time (47 of 292)​
• Lost the game 24% of the time (69 of 292)​
[Note -- total games used here are 292 rather than 296 to eliminate the 4 games in which no ball was made after the break.]​

▪︎ The loser won an average of 4.2 games in the 17 races to 10 (excludes the longer semifinals and final). One of the 20 matches went to hill/hill. Two matches were shutouts.

▪︎ The average minutes per game for all 20 matches was 5.9. The elapsed time was measured from the lag until the winning ball was made, so it includes time for racking and timeouts (no commercial breaks this year).

▪︎ The match that was highest in average minutes per game, at 7.0, was the final match, Neuhausen d. He 13-7. The match lowest in average minutes per game, at 5.0, was Gorst d. Wagenmann 10-1.

▪︎ Breaking fouls averaged 1 for every 16.4 games, other fouls 1 for every 4.2 games, and missed shots about 1 for every 1.7 games.

▪︎ One or more safeties were played in about 50% of all games and in 67% of games that were not B&Rs.
 
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